Lit Circle Letters 1-2

The Forever War is probably now one of my favorite books that I've read. It's really good and the parallels to war, Vietnam in specific, are unprecedented. This book also sounds like it could've been written yesterday. It's so timeless, its hard to remember that it was written in the 70s. I've never found a book that's been so old yet could be so current. With Brave New World I could tell it was older, but this one, it definitely stays current. The only thing that confuses me about this is the "physics". I've been told that they are made up, which frankly, makes a lot of sense, because they don't make any. And I think it detracts from the glory of this novel. No ones going to understand it anyways why include it, to take up space?
Other than that this book is brilliant. Basically what happens in the first section is an introduction into the world of war in the 1990s and it isn't pretty. Only half the people survive through the training. I don't know if that's what it was in 'Nam, but I hope it wasn't. And then They land on one of the enemies planets and have the first encounter with the Taurans in which there are many similarities to Vietnam. It was a very gory and disturbing battle. Its this way with most of the book for that matter. There's lots of sex, lots of gory descriptions in the way people were killed or injured. But that's part of what makes this an awesome book. I can also see why almost no one, during the time period he wrote it, would publish it. It has very controversial and, as I said, disturbing content.
In this second section, the soldiers are traveling to the next world and are attacked by the enemy, one third of the soldiers are instantly killed and lots more die and get injured, so they return to Earth. The rest of the section is basically about the different world they returned to. One third of the population is gay, there is a universal currency, lots of people are unemployed, and very violent. The deaths of most the main characters families bring them to reenlist as trainers on the moon, but they get swindled and shipped back out into space.
It must have seemed like a different world to the vets returning from the Vietnam war, it probably didn't help the characters out that they had only aged two years when the world had aged 25. Which was something I didn't get, more of the made-up physics. And the fact that the army put them back into space seemed like just the kind of swindling that the army would've done back in the day (the nonfictional 70s). That's all I really have to report so far. This is a great book so far. It's got love, sex, violence, drugs, the works. I would for sure recommend this to anyone 14 and up, because there are some pretty mature subjects. So far I'd give it an A, it's not nearly as weird as the last book I read.